The police are frequently called upon to make tough choices with little time to
react. I salute the officers for protecting the crowd and doing their job. Some
may "armchair quarterback" this in the days to come with the luxury of
hindsight, much more information, and no accountability for such opinions. My
feeling is just to say "Thank You" to the men on the "thin blue
line". I'm glad that only one person lost their life. Sad that such things
must happen to protect us.

The officer should have should have checked into his rights before shooting.
Maybe he was insane or had some other mental problem and did'nt know what he was
doing. Perhaps police officers should'nt carry firearms. Were regulations and
procedures followed?

The reporter seems to be prejudging what happened, or simply accepting as fact
the police version of events (stating that the officers were "fearing for
the crowd" when they fired). That may be true, but the reporter should add
"according to police," and we should wait until an investigation
before opining as to whether the shooting was necessary.

The journalist obviously learned that the police feared for the lives of the
public by hearing that from the police. How else could that be known? The
motivations of the man with the gun may never be known. It is certainly
understandable why police would feel they needed to fire when the man didn't
comply and was running away holding a gun with innocent bystanders nearby.

There will be an investigation and we'll find out as much as possible at
that time.

All the same, it's a really sad tale. For someone to be
killed at the Temple on Christmas is really tragic. I feel sorry for him and
his family.

Worf......The officers acted in the best interests of those present. Remember
their motto...protect and serve they were doing just that. I don't think that
officers have time to find out whether he was hugged enough by his mom or dad or
if he had taken his medication that day. They have to act

pre-judging? Not to hard, let's see, man walking around
with a shotgun in a public place, police ask him to put down weapon, man refuses
and runs away...public is now in jeopardy...who would in their right mind think,
"Oh, the man with a loaded shotgun is now running towards a crowd of people
after we asked him to stop and drop his weapon. Oh, he's is probably looking for
a nice person to give his gun too, someone he trusts who will take care of
it."

Over reacting Officer????that could have been deadly if he would have been
out a crime to kill others!Yet the officer could have Only Wound this man
not kill him.Yes we all Dont Know the Whole Story Do we?Let them Get
the Story all placed in the tragic story.

Before we all jump in to
say things not right.Good thing some other person seen him with that
ShotGun!

this shot gun wielder had a confrontation with another man in the parking lot of
the temple. when police were called they called for th gun toter to
relinquish his weapon. after repeated calls, with the armed man heading towards
the crowd, the police fired and killed the shotgun man. this man was
threatening at least one other person. do you REALLY expect the police to
administer a MMPPI test before controlling the situation?

It appears the man WAS ON the Temple grounds. The fence that
appears in the photo is around the Temple proper. The grounds are quite large
(11 acres) while the immediate area around the Temple is fenced in similarly to
Temple Square.

I wouldn't say that the fact that someone has a gun on their person is reason to
shoot. The fact that he has a gun, was probably intimidating temple visitors by
brandishing it, failed to cooperate with police, and ran is reason to shoot.
The suspect was just asking for trouble by acting like that. The police did the
right thing. Take care of the problem before it turns into another Trolley
Square.

As to the other side of the argument that the police should
have checked on their rights... Are you insane? I'm sorry, but you just don't
have the luxury of time or political correctness to ask the guy whether or not
you have the right to shoot him. How many innocent people have to be shot at,
or even killed, before you make that decision to take down the suspect? The
police did the absolute right thing in this case by making that call at 0 and
I'm grateful they took action before the suspect did.